>> i'm bobby. >> i'm johnny. >> we'll travel to an elementary school in lebanon, tennessee, where 15 separate sets of twins made people start to wonder. >> what's going on? what's in the water in lebanon? and confirmation once and for all of what we've all suspected our dogs are thinking. that and more tonight as "rock center" gets under way. good evening. welcome to "rock center." and here's the setup as we begin tonight. a doctor, an agent and a politician walk into a bar. it is not the setup to a joke. it's the introduction to our first story. it's about the emanuel brothers. we're pretty sure they are the most prominent three brothers from any one family in public life in america today. there's rahm, who was in the news just today for the school closings in the city of chicago, ari, the agent, and zeke, the doctor. and you're about to get to know them. as you'll see, there's a lot of

them to take in. theirs is, after all, a unique american story. >> first, i'm not doing that. >> take a moment and listen to what it's like to be in a room with these three brothers. >> our father, when he gets nervous. he goes too tough. >> i'm sitting between you guys. you want me to calm down? >> we'll just start in here while they continue. we're at a bar in new york with the three emanuels, the agent, the doctor and the politician. we're here because the doctor, as oldest brother, has written a book. >> his worst client? i'll tell you -- >> can you do me a favor? >> you're the worst of my worst clients. >> he wrote the book to describe what it's like to grow up in this family and to tell the story properly, we really need this to stop. >> ask the [ bleep ] damn question. >> we'll start with the parents. the father, benjamin. an israeli jew, a pediatrician

who moved to the new world with nothing. he meets his future wife marcia, a medical technician. they first settle in a chicago apartment house. then benjamin built a practice. their american dream included moving on up to wilmette, the suburbs. four kids, a sister shoshana and these three boys for years sharing one room. there were summers in israel, football games in the living room and a lot of scrapes they all survived. >> i think one of the remarkable things that most people don't fully get, there's no one in the neighborhood, no one who lived next to us and said, oh, those emanuel boys are going to succeed. we were, if anything, late bloomers. part of the late blooming is constantly pushing, never resting. >> and it's how they were raised and what's become of all of them that's become the stuff of this family's folklore and led to this book. >> we all began getting questions, what did mom put in the cereal? how come you have three successful brothers in three different areas?

how did that happen and how can i raise my kids that way? >> after this interview, some will say how can i got raise my kids that way? >> this is not a manual for how to raise your kids. it should say, don't try this at home. >> this is only the emanuel manuel and don't try this at home, anybody. >> they gave us a great base of pushing us but not over the edge that it created great anxiety and us being uncomfortable with where we are. that comes off at times maybe arrogant. >> i think you can strike that word. >> but they did give us a great base that, which when we come against adversity -- we've always had it. i can tell you that raum's in the white house, i can tell you mine with dyslexia. we get over it or individually get over it. >> there was a strong ethos that drove the family, an unmistakable message. >> mom's sense that, a, you were here to make the world better,

or make an improvement in other people's lives. and b, you are fortunate to be here in this country, to be alive, and it is not to be wasted. that comes with both an immigrant jewish mind-set that is unique. >> the thing is also they were able to allow us to hold two contradictory kind of qualities together. to respect authority and to constantly challenge it and question it. >> it was an unusual family, intellectually rigorous, boycer usso boisterous, they may be america's jewish kennedys. their mother took them to march on washington and took them to hear king's speech in chicago. at the time american families might just find the emanuel household exhausting. and then admit as much. >> my mother deserves a congressional medal of honor for it ninchts person that ever came to dinner left exhausted. >> we were energized but everybody else -- i had a girlfriend who came and half way

through the meal went upstairs and went to bed. couldn't handle it. >> reading from the book t underlying message was if you were not skilled at the thrust and parry of kitchen table debate, there was something wrong with you. emanuels did not have to accommodate to the world. the world had to accommodate to them. gentlemen, defend yourselves. really? >> yeah. >> i find nothing wrong with that. >> in most families, you hear parents talk about the kid who grew up to be the successful one or the smart one tore famous one. but in this family, that's all of them. perhaps the most blindingly smart of the three of them is the author, dr. zeke emanuel, a bioethicist, educated at am hearst, oxford, a harvard m.d. and ph.d.. he speaks and writes about americans' health care for a living. >> the united states health care

system is the largest economy in the world. we spend on health care more than the french spend on everything for 66 million people. >> of the three brothers, while he is the author of the book, he's not the one most people know from television, which doesn't mean he hasn't done television. >> here's zeke. zeke emanuel, a smart kid from harvard, now a yank at oxford. >> this was an early tv reality show called "now get out of that" which aired on the bbc in 1981. it was part intellectual challenge, part physical, obstacles, problem solving. and as you'll hear, it's not just zeke's chicago accent that sets him apart, it's how he throws himself into and at everything. >> but says you may not walk inside the area. >> that's what it says here, walk. >> later in the bog area -- >> hang on. >> it's not a top. it's a milk can or something.

>> then in the water. >> this ain't no raft. where's the rubber dinghy. >> at 27 he shows physique and courage, but always leads with his brain. >> you have to hand it to zeke. he may be pushy, but where would they be without him? >> which brings us to the next brother in the emanuel family. rahm is the mayor of chicago. he's been the white house chief of staff under president obama, a member of congress from illinois and special counsel to president clinton in the white house. he's famously profane, enormously confident, he speaks and moves fast. a few more things to know about him, he lost part of a finger after a meat slicer accident while working at arby's. he's trained in ballet. and actually moves like a dancer. it's more of a glide than a walk. even when he's about to close the door in your face. he is the first mayor of chicago not named daly in 22 years.

and it willy, to his sorrow, frustration and consternation, chicago has become the poster city for gun violence. you've got kids killing each other in your city, and that's a big deal. on top of everything else in your life, that goes to sleep with you every night and it's here with you in this room right now. >> well, yes. i wake up, the first thing i get is the overnight of what happened. i make it a purpose, which is not done, never done, i call each of the families whose kids have been victims one way or the other of a shooting. when the kids are out of the hospital, i bring them into my office. >> and those kids, he says, have to feel a part of the gleaming beautiful side of the city you see from the lakefront. >> the way i look at my job, that every child in the city of chicago, when they look downtown and they see all those high-rises, all that promise, all that energy, all that opportunity, if they can't see themselves in that city and

their future, i have not succeeded in my job. >> which brings us to the third brother, ari. he struggled with dyslexia and hyperactivity as a boy, which maybe had something to do with the name of the firm he founded later in life -- endeavor. it has since merged with the william morris agency. he's a hollywood superagent whose clients include justin timberlake, oprah winfrey and ben affleck for starters. if the name ari rings a bell it's because you've seen him portrayed on the hbo series "entourage." >> tell the school when they schedule a parent/teacher condition frens at 2:30 on a friday, it means they don't care about daddy. i'll take you away for the weekend. i'll get a plane. we'll go to cabo. i'll get you a nice lobster from edith's? >> really? >> no, not really. speak or i'll intern you like 1942. >> i am not japanese, ari. >> speak! >> what if your doctor told you

you've got to calm down. find something else, somewhere to go, what would you do? >> if it didn't include a phone, it would be very hard for me to do it. >> you're just going to go until you're -- >> if the world ended but there were phones, i think i could figure something out. >> that's tragic. the emanuel brothers do not suffer from self-doubt, at least not outwardly. they do not suffer fools gladly, and as we learned, they don't love being challenged or prodded. ari's facial expressions speak volumes when the conversation turned to his scorched earth reputation in hollywood, which surprisingly then resulted in a genuine moment of self-reflection when i asked him about correcting anything in his past. what thing would you change about yourself if you could? >> i would have gotten into therapy a lot earlier and dealt with stuff. but you know something, i wish -- >> can i just say one thing? >> you know something?

i'm actually really comfortable. i've done a lot of work on myself. i'm really happy. i'm the happiest i've been in a long time. the company's in a great place, my partnerships, my kids are in a great place, i love my brothers, i love my wife, i love my kids. i'm in a good place so i can't argue with it. >> remember how our story started? an agent, a doctor and a politician walk into a bar. well, the story ends with brother ari talking about loyalty and brotherhood. just to clear up any ambiguity. >> you know something, somebody crosses us or somebody crosses a friend, they know we're going to be in the trench, if it's appropriate. and i promise you, that we're going to be on their side, and it's going to be a battle. and i think that is also loyalty. there's how we treat people, but also if somebody screws with one of us or a friend or a company, that we will be there to defend it. and that's also how we grew up. >> so there you have the emanuel brothers. and you may have noticed along the way there, the brothers can

be a tad argumentative. but this may set the modern-day record. they've been carrying on a 20-year argument among themselves, and it has to do with the movie "the deer hunter" and the relative accuracy of its portrayal of certain aspects of the war in vietnam. as we say, it's not for the faint of heart, and you can't make this stuff up. up next, after a break, ted koppel has a powerful story about what some have said is a dark secret of the american criminal justice system. >> so you're stuck to where you can't stand up straight. you have to walk around on your knees within your cell. so you can't stand up at all. you couldn't use the bathroom or the toilet. that's where you're stuck. what's droid-recognition ?

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we're back with a report tonight on the subject most there are roughly 100,000 young

people locked away in prisons and jails with a mostly adult population. while they have committed crimes, the punishment they get has not received much attention until tonight. ted koppel has our "rock center" investigation. >> reporter: the demotts of battle creek, michigan. here's the thing about family albums -- they tend to focus on the good stuff. the tiny triumphs. the family at peace. not the dark shadows that made lois demott realize that her son kevin has profound emotional problems. >> it really started by the time he was 3 or 4 years old. we started seeing these increased rages that would last longer and would begin either breaking things or even hurting himself. >> reporter: we're talking age 3, age 4? >> yes.

and it would just be sporadic. when he was even 9, 10 years old, they started questioning if he was bipolar. >> reporter: the bipolar diagnosis was confirmed when he was 11. when this photograph was taken, kevin was 18 in solitary confinement in adult prison doing time for an armed robbery he'd attempted when he was 13. the helmet, the restraints were to keep kevin from smashing his head against the walls of his cell. this is kevin demott today. he is now 21. >> when you first get, you know, restrained down, one of the hardest parts is not knowing how long am i going to be tied down. there's no one who comes on and says there's a definite, you know, you're going to be here for four hours, you're going to be here till you calm down. when you calm down is when they say you've calmed down. >> reporter: on a couple of occasions kevin was stripped to his shorts and hogtied for 12

hours. can you show me? >> well, they take chains and put them around your waist. they take leg irons and put them around both. and they have you kneel on something like the bench or the bed and they connect the chain between the back of here this way down to here. so you're stuck to where you can't stand up straight. you have to walk around on your knees within your cell. so you can't stand up at all. you couldn't use the bathroom and the toilet. that's where you're stuck. >> reporter: that's got to be very painful. >> it's the worst thing i ever went through. >> reporter: if you want a sense of what can go wrong in our juvenile justice system, kevin demott is a walking blueprint. according to data from the department of justice, kevin is among roughly 100,000 young people held in adult jails and prisons in each of the last five years. >> i spoke to kids. they talked about being in a cell alone the size of a parking space, the size of an elevator.

>> reporter: ian kysel authored a report on juveniles in solitary confinement for the aclu and human rights watch. do you have any estimate at all as to how many would be in solitary confinement at any given time? >> well, because this is sort of the dark secret of the criminal justice system, there aren't great data sources on this. jails and prisons don't make available their data on solitary confinement. >> reporter: solitary is a place of punishment where they put the most violent prisoners. ironically, it's also a place of security for the most vulnerable, informers, excops, kids. first impression? especially on a day like this when you got the sunlight streaming in through the window, not that bad. you got a bunk, a desk, you got a toilet, wash basin. but it's three steps across the cell, six steps the length of it.

that's your world, the entirety of it. 23 hours a day, day after day, week after week, month after month. that's what starts to work on your mind. in solitary, that's how kevin spent much, he says most, of the five years he was locked up. the odyssey began when he was 13. he was hanging around with a bunch of older guys. they were supplying him with dope. one day they gave him what kevin claims was a toy bb gun and told him he had to rob a local pizzeria. >> i remember running in and saying, you know, just get down. i don't want to hurt anybody. i just have to get the money. >> reporter: he didn't hurt anyone or get the money. he just ran. the police had kevin face down in the snow within a matter of minutes. >> i guess they probably didn't recognize that i was just 13. they said if you move a muscle, i'm going to put one in the back of your head. referring to, you know, a bullet. >> before i made it home from

the police station, i had family, friends calling me saying that they had heard about this armed robbery, and kevin -- they gave his name on the radio. at the age of 13. and then we learned that they were going to charge him as an adult. >> reporter: an increasingly common practice, but still, a possible life sentence? kevin's attorney came back with a deal from the prosecutor. kevin would begin serving his time in a juvenile home. if he misbehaved, though, the judge could sentence him to an adult prison. kevin, remember, has been diagnosed as bipolar. at a juvenile facility in iowa, he did not do well. >> i took the mental part from inside my glasses and started scratching on my arm at night. >> reporter: on your arms and legs? >> yeah. >> reporter: you were cutting yourself? >> mm-hmm. >> reporter: his level of

desperation got even worse. >> i tried to hang myself to that light fixture in my cell at the juvenile home. at that point their only other option was to send me to an all-adult facility. >> reporter: at the adult facility kevin was kept in solitary. how much time do you estimate that you spent in your cell? >> on the weekends, it was usually the whole 48, you know, because but on average i'd say 22 hours a day in my cell. >> reporter: did anyone ever explain to you why you were in that cell, why you were kept in that cell 22 hours a day? >> yeah. i mean, they told me for my protection. >> reporter: what are authorities in adult prisons supposed to do with kids? i put the question to psychiatrist stuart grassian who was a professor at harvard medical school for 25 years. they're just saying these kids are now your problem, take care of them. don't let them be violated.

don't let them be raped. don't let them be beaten up. >> and don't let them become psychotic. >> reporter: i hadn't heard anybody say that. >> that's right. >> reporter: and you? >> no. they should. >> reporter: because? >> because they do become psychotic. they do become suicidal. they do kill themselves. they do become increasingly out of control. they do self-mutilate. it happens. >> reporter: out of control. it's one thing to have a psychiatrist talking about it, but this is actual video of kevin demott. there is no sound. video sent to us by the michigan department of corrections to show -- and this is a quote -- how unmanageable, assaultive and violent kevin can be, end quote. this video, they felt, would explain why isolation and restraints are sometimes necessary, but that's the point. kevin is mentally ill. his mother told us that he was

having violent rages since he was just a little boy. >> on the day that kevin was sentenced, the judge looked at us and said, he will get the mental health help he needs inside the corrections system. >> in a prison system, we don't get to pick and choose who comes in the front door. >> reporter: until two years ago pat was director of prisons in michigan. >> we have a 100% admittance rate. so if the judge sends you, we take you. we don't get to say we're full, we're sorry, this person is too mentally ill, they can't come in. >> reporter: but you're in a different position now. you're not serving as director of prisons any more. >> that's correct. >> reporter: i'm asking you in that capacity, is our society handling this problem correctly? both with kids and with the mentally ill, but most particularly with juveniles who are mentally ill? what the hell are they doing in prison?

>> i will say no, we're not handling it correctly. there definitely is a better way to do what we're doing. because what we're doing is not working. >> so it's clear that prison can be a tough place on teenagers, but there is still that question about what should happen to young people who may have destroyed someone else's family. ted koppel will continue his reporting after this. [ rv guy ] enbrel may not work for everyone -- and may not clear you completely, but for many, it gets skin clearer fast, within 2 months, and keeps it clearer through 6 months. [ male announcer ] enbrel may lower your ability to fight infections. serious, sometimes fatal events, including infections, tuberculosis, lymphoma, other cancers, nervous system and blood disorders, and allergic reactions have occurred. before starting enbrel, your doctor should test you for tuberculosis

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generation of world-class teachers. you may want to become a teacher... the more you know. welcome back. as we continue with our reporting about young people confinement, often told it is for their own good, so they aren't attacked in adult as we've seen around the clock solitary confinement can be a terrifying and soul crushing experience even for those who have done wrong. and we just heard a former prison director say there's got to be a better way. the larger question, perhaps, why does this practice persist in jails and prisons across this

country? ted koppel continues his report. >> reporter: many prosecutors, like denver district attorney mitch morrissey, still resonate to the slogan of the 1990s, adult time for adult crime. >> the horrendous kid that kills both his parents and then threatens to kill the other people that are involved with him, they're going to prison. >> reporter: adult prison? >> adult prison. >> reporter: here's a flavor of the 1990s, "teenage time bombs" on the cover of "u.s. news & world report." "newsweek," "wild in the streets" and "superpredators arrive. that has faded, but it hasn't gone away. >> these are the juveniles that kill people, that rape people, that slaughter people on our highways when they're drunk, and they're three year, four years away from even legal drinking age. those are the kind of people that my office says we're going to try you as an adult. >> reporter: many defense

attorneys like bryan stevenson argue that most of the juveniles in prison don't fall into that superpredator category. >> 91% of the children who are serving time in adult jails and prisons are serving time in jails and prisons for crimes that are not murder, crimes that are not sex crimes. >> reporter: it's a catch 22. prosecuted and sentenced as adults but segregated from the adult population because, legally, they are still children. the result -- an unknown number of juvenile offenders out of sight and often going out of their minds in solitary. >> he had said that, you know, they were keeping him in solitary confinement 23 hours a day. and that he felt like he was going crazy in there. >> reporter: nicole miera is talking about her 17-year-old brother, james stewart, who was in jail charged as an adult and awaiting sentencing for vehicular homicide.

these pictures taken by a security camera show his car swerving into an oncoming lane. james was drunk and under the influence of marijuana. the other driver, a 32-year-old man, was killed. james was remorseful. he knew he was going to do time. >> i'm sorry. >> reporter: there was never any question about the nature of the crime or of james stewart's guilt. >> i love you, james. >> i'm so sorry. >> reporter: it happens, doesn't it, all the time? your brother killed someone. >> mm-hmm. >> reporter: certainly didn't mean to, that wasn't his intent. what did those people have a right to expect from society? >> my brother having to serve time for what he had done.

>> reporter: what james didn't know, couldn't expect, was that he would spend weeks in solitary. mitch more risy's office prosecuted james and he was held in the denver county jail. >> it was probably a pretty classic jail. >> reporter: classic has about as gentle a term as you can use for it. >> it was built in the 1950s, it was a facility that was outdated. i know what you're talking about. >> reporter: it's pretty awful. >> well, there's sliding -- they feed them through doors, and, yeah, it's jail. jail's awful. >> reporter: so a bad place to send a kid. >> bad place to send a kid. the kid killed somebody in our community. he widowed somebody. >> reporter: the stewart family had no money for bail, which is a common problem for bryan stevenson's clients also. th he represents a great many minority children charged as adults. >> the rate of sexual violence

for children in adult prisons the ten times higher than other adults. suicide rate much higher. and solitary confinement is pretty horrible for anybody, but especially horrible for a child. it is psychological torture. >> reporter: that's more than just one defense lawyer's opinion. it's an established medical conclusion. >> so many people becoming psychotic, so many suicides. >> reporter: psychiatrist stuart grassian cites research done for the cia on the impact of solitary confinement on american p.o.w.s in north korea. >> what was produced by that was a person who was so unhinged, he was confused, disoriented, disheveled. they wouldn't sometimes know who they were. they couldn't think. >> reporter: it terrified james stewart. for a while, he'd been in a cell with another juvenile. they got into a squabble, the corrections officers came to move him.

this time as punishment back to solitary. >> my brother begged, please, you know, crying. the other boy's cry kg, please don't split us up. we're fine. nothing's wrong. >> reporter: and because of that, james was thrown into what they call the hole. >> that's correct. >> reporter: how long was james there? >> six minutes or so. >> reporter: six minutes? >> six to eight minutes or so. just a very, very small amount of time. >> reporter: and in that time, look, i mean, this is the essence of what we're talking about, so i realize this -- >> no, please. >> reporter: it's difficult for you. but what happened? >> it was stated that james -- that when he dgot in there, he was pretty upset. and he had taken a sheet and he had wrapped it around his neck and just twisted until he couldn't twist any more. >> reporter: james stewart was

17. part of a rising tide of juveniles who commit suicide in solitary. though he feels james stewart was properly prosecuted, mitch morrissey is the first to say that the system is broken. >> incarceration is not the answer. but when there's nothing left because you've stripped all these other parts of our society out because you can't afford them, because you don't want to do them, then we're the last ones standing. and if we're going to be the punching bag of the media, well, you don't have the institutions you're talking about. is that the criminal justice system's fault? i don't think so. >> reporter: but the harshest indictment of all comes from michigan's former director of prisons, pat caruso. >> the economy that we have on ople being incarcerated for long periods of time -- >> reporter: i'm sorry. tell me what that means. the economy that we have built

that depends upon incarcerating people? >> there's a fairly common theory in corrections that over a period of decades our country converted from a military industrial-based economy to a prison industrial-based economy. we went into community that wanted the prisons because of the good jobs they provided and the boost to the local economy or perhaps we went into a community that didn't have the political ability to stop it. but most communities love their prisons. the people ha work another the prisons, it's not their fault. they're hired to do a job. and they do their job. >> reporter: do you mean -- i'm sure you do -- do you realize how disgusting that is? >> i do. people in my business talk about it all the time. >> reporter: but at the end of it all says dr. grassian, we're shooting ourselves in the foot. >> you have these kids getting more and more out of control,

more and more impulsive, more and more emotionally out of control because they're in solitary, it's very likely that's going to be a permanent impairment in their lives. >> reporter: and those in society you say, too bad, they shouldn't have committed the crime in first place? >> well, guess what, 95% of them will get back out into your community. what do you want them to be like when they get out? >> that's a chilling note to end on. and ted, you look at it as a subject matter, think about how solitary has been used as a weapon against us, the united states, to break our guys. >> it was used by the north koreans in the korean war against u.s. p.o.w.s, it was used by the kgb. dr. grassian who you saw at the end, said the kgb did not use physical torture. they simply used isolation as a way of breaking people down. we're talking about political dissidents, we're talking about soldiers. here i'm talking about kids. it is just a national disgrace.

>> well, as we said, it's a story not in people's ken. they don't walk around thinking about it every day. and now perhaps they will. thank you. always a pleasure. >> thank you. >> ted koppel with us here tonight. next up, it is just one school in one town where you would be forgiven for thinking you are seeing double. if you want to refine a luxury car you're proud to put your name on, work with a guy whose name is his reputation. [ engine turns over ] the 300c john varvatos limited edition. now lease the 2013 chrysler 300 for $299 a month for well-qualified lessees. ♪

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we are back with living proof of what appears to be an incredible coincidence. one elementary school where an unusual number of kids come in pairs. so why this one school in this one town in tennessee? kiran chetry went there for us looking for answers. >> i'm hane. >> i'm lane. >> i'm bobby. >> i'm johnny. >> i'm tyler. >> timmy. >> i'm laura. >> i'm eddie. >> kiley. >> abby. >> reed. >> sawyer.

>> samantha. >> ashley. >> autumn. >> harris. >> emma. >> jack. >> tina. >> lacy. >> mandy. >> reporter: welcome to castle heights elementary school in lebanon, tennessee. home to 611 students and 15 sets of twins. >> this morning we have a set of our third grade twins going to say our pledges. >> i pledge of allegiance to the flag -- >> what's going on? what's in the water in lebanon? just a coincidence. >> it's unbelievable. puts us on the map. ♪ i'm going down to lebanon ♪ tennessee >> reporter: this tennessee town has no particular claim to fame until the number of twins in this one school turned out to be almost double the national average. your friends and your classmates and sometimes your teachers or different adults at the school, do they have trouble telling you apart? >> yes.

>> reporter: so forget the parent trap -- >> johnny -- >> that's bobby. >> reporter: and the guessing games go on long after school gets out. bobby and johnny live on the same street as hannah and layla who love to play with lily and liz. their moms kristin and lindsey say it gets confusing. >> i have a hard time telling hers apart. >> i can't tell hers apart. >> which makes you feel bad. >> reporter: do they gravitate to twins for friendship? >> no other choice at our school. >> reporter: people are all asking is there something in the water here? how is this happening? >> i don't know. we were in vegas when it happened. >> reporter: out of the 15 sets of twins, three couples said that they used fertility treatments. for the others, the double blessing was just luck. either way castle heights was fertile ground for twin researcher and psychology professor nancy siegel. we brought her along so she could spend time observing the twins.

>> i think it's very important that we focus on twins because they're going up in frequency. >> reporter: in fact, the twin birth rate has more than doubled in the u.s. since the 1980s, but why the fascination? >> we look at them. and they just seem to connect so well. of course everybody wants to have that perfect partner. identical twins have it from birth. i'm interested in cooperation among fraternal twins. >> reporter: she uses a simple experiment, solve this puzzle together. >> i'm going to put the pieces of the puzzle in between the two of you. >> reporter: her research shows that identicals tend to work as a team. >> great, wonderful, girls. >> reporter: while fraternals are more likely to compete. >> let me try. >> reporter: and as we found out -- tease. >> i have princesses on it. my brother wants to play with it. >> no, i don't. >> reporter: you're telling the whole world he wants to play with princesses? that's fine.

so if the question is who is older -- >> she's one minute older. >> i'm four bigger than emma because i was born first. >> reporter: or funnier. >> him. >> me. >> me. >> me. >> me. >> reporter: or meaner. >> laura. >> him. >> we're both mean. >> we're both mean. >> yeah. >> it's me. >> reporter: there are probably 15 ways to argue about it at castle heights elementary.

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♪ still thinking of all those sets of twins in lebanon, tennessee. at any rate we've reached rock bottom. so often that means we have grabbed something off the web that was simply too rich to let get by. our parents told us not to burn our bridges, but we sure blow them up real good.

the website galopnik has put together the best planned planned detonations of bridges in history. so what? when we do stuff big, it's really spectacular. also this week our combined "rock center" nbc "nightly news" staff retreat. there's tension in the air between the smug we're on in primetime crowd and we're america's leading newscast people. seriously, this is the ukrainian parliament. thanks ukrainian parliament for giving us a reason to feel good about our congress. in space news this week, jeff bezos, the boss and creator of amazon.com launched a sea hunt to find the jettisoned nasa rocket engines that helped carry apollo 11 to the moon. his dive team recovered the engine parts in the atlantic. it's a three-day job getting them on land. two days available. overnight for slightly more.

in irate news, the mayor of kansas city got kanyed this week while giving a speech. the irate guy was, as they say, wrestled to the ground. and the sly mayor, that's actually his name, sly james, just watched it all happen and said, that was unfortunate. something we noticed on st. paddy's day. the brits don't just do shamrocks. they do the whole plant. prince william had one plastered to his hat while a radiant kate wore a clump on her lapel. it may be overcorrection guilt on the whole ireland thing but wearing them by the bunch is a bold statement for the brits. there was a near miss this week in the great state of maine. the state where every man suddenly signed up for zumba class a while back. now they're dealing with a proposal to rename their new instant lottery game, the kwickie. just thought of a guy walking in to the 7-eleven asking for a quickie made them think better of it.

this was plain fantastic. totally illegal, but still fantastic. two guys in flying suits flying right through the spirs of a high rise in rio. one false move and they're bugs on a windshield. because they knew what they were doing was exciting but wrong, they intentionally made their flight before the first arriving commercial flight at the airport, where those guys all insist on engines to get around. real birds were in the news this week. first, a study in current biology says some birds in the midwest are learning how to avoid vehicles. don't laugh. they're birds. they are learning not to sit in the road because cars go there. and their wingspans have evolved to make them faster flyers. someone on theationationist blog offered proof on how closely airplane designers study birds. that's a falcon up top. a b-2 stealth bomber on the bottom. there's even a plane called the falcon, and it flies real well. finally, if you've ever loved a dog, then you know they

have moods and emotions and their doggy faces show it. this dog is named mal. he was the face of this study. he's shown being happy, sad and angry. this face means he's scared. and this face means i can't believe you guys are doing another segment on dogs. have you no sense of decency at long last? okay, so we all have our weaknesses. all part of reaching rock bottom for tonight. we wanted to let you know next week on our broadcast, if you're one of the many americans who waits till the last minute to file your tax return, you may want to get to it before someone else who is not you files in your name and collects what could be your refund. >> how easy is it to steal someone's identity and file a tax return? >> it's been very easy for quite a long time. >> who's susceptible to being victimized by this crime? >> everybody. >> this, believe it or not, is a $5 billion a year crime.

we'll have that and an all new "rock center" for you next week. for now and for all of us here in new york, that is "rock center" for this week. thank you for being here with us. please have a good weekend. your late local news begins now. . . >> up next, the search to find a man that witnesses say stabbed a woman to death right in front of them. also, the chance encounter that turned a principal into a hero. the news starts in 30 seconds.

right now at 11:00, how a principal turned crime fighter. also, a well-known, local baseball coach surrenders. plus -- >> you get close to the window and you could see everything that was happening. >> workers at a local sandwich shop saw it all. tonight, what we uncovered about the woman who was killed in broad day light. we begin with breaking news. an investigation is underway in the east bay after sheriff's deputies opened fire on a man they believed pointed a rifle at them. tonight, that man is in the

hospital. nbc bay area cheryl herd joins us with the story. cheryl? >> reporter: well, rog, police say they they got the call at about 7:00 here at this home. a family member who is living here called police and told the dispatcher that their relative was acting bizarre, threatening and abusive. so they left the house. soon after that, police say that the suspect called police and told them that he was going to shoot up the world. and then police said that they got another call from the suspect. >> he later calls back, shortly there after and says i know you guys are coming for me. anybody that comes here, i'm going to shoot them. with that information, we knew who he was. he's on probation for a weapons' charge. so we set up a perimeter. >> reporter: with the